VIDEO: Horse Crashes in NYC—Carriage and Street Left Splattered With Blood
New York City tourists surely don’t visit the Big Apple hoping to see bloodied animals on the streets, and horses certainly don’t sign up to be used in the cruel and dangerous carriage industry. Yet here we are, disturbed and frustrated after yet another violent incident. This time, a gory crash left a Midtown street and the heavy carriage that a horse named Chief was forced to pull covered with his blood.
@officialpeta A horse is left with a bloody injury after colliding with a car in NYC. This is why horse carriages need to be banned. Link in bio for the story.
♬ Sad Scene BGM Piano Instrument(313618) – HomeMadeGarbage
So, is this the tragedy that will finally force city officials to ban horse-drawn carriages? It’s the question that PETA, NYCLASS (New Yorkers for Clean, Livable, and Safe Streets), and countless heated Twitter users are asking—and we need 10 seconds of your time to help ensure that the answer is “yes.”
Footage of the “[b]loody aftermath of yesterday’s horrific NYC carriage horse crash” is perhaps just as haunting as the video above showing the “[i]njured horse violently bucking and trying to get off the pavement.” According to the New York Post, the horse and a BMW sedan crashed near an intersection in Midtown. “The NYPD said the animal suffered a gash to [the] leg and was treated by a veterinarian,” the outlet reported.
Photographs of the aftermath, also posted by NYCLASS (a local nonprofit animal rights organization), show the street and sidewalk covered with large splotches of blood. “The carriage was heavily damaged and its shafts were also coated in blood”—further confirmation of the violence of the crash.
PETA and NYCLASS have been calling on the city to put an end to its cruel horse-drawn carriage industry for years. “How much more violence will it take for @NYCCouncil to end this abuse + danger!?” NYCLASS captioned its photos on Twitter. “We need to get these horse[s] OFF streets now!” If New York City continues to engage in speciesism by treating horses as machines—rather than the sensitive, social animals they are, ones who prefer to spend their time grazing in meadows, roaming at will, and playing—it’s not a matter of if another tragedy will strike but when.
Chief and other horses can’t wait for another administration to fail to take decisive action.
After you’ve joined us in urging New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to lead the council to ban horse-drawn carriages without delay, please consider sharing this post on Facebook and Twitter. Ask your family, friends, and other followers to speak out against forcing horses to pull heavy carriages full of tourists down busy city streets in all weather extremes.
If you’re visiting an unfamiliar city and you find yourself needing transportation, hail a cab, take the subway, rent a bike from a bike-share service, or simply walk. A carriage ride may be a fleeting moment of entertainment for tourists, but it supports a lifetime of torment and forced labor for horses.
